Life through the eye of a needle. Simple stories, adventures and lessons in our daily life.

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It’s 9:38pm when I start writing this piece. Am half drunk after downing 250 ml of Kibao vodka. Am I half drunk or half sober? Depends on who you’re talking to. My half drunkenness is not from doing the 250ml of vodka. Before this I passed by “muchita” the busaa place for a tin or so. Stereotypically you’d be forgiven to say I did the busaa because of the January a.k.a njaanuary but the fact that am in the bar doing vodka means your fears have been dispelled. Well the fact that am doing Kibao again fucks up my defence above. It’s not the type of drink I indulge in on a good day. Nevertheless, it’s a little class or so I convince myself.

The truth of the matter is that January is that month! That month where the only thing you can donate is blood, the only thing you can lose is network, the only thing you can give is pregnancy, the only thing you can pay is attention, the only thing you can…….. What’s that? Vodka has escaped with that one. So here I am at the bar seated alone in a corner where WiFi is reachable because where the other guys are seated WiFi is not accessible and am not using my mobile data to blog when there’s WiFi 15 meters away. Heri niwe pekee yangu (I’d rather be alone). It’s now 22:11hours at this point and my mother in law(once one always one sorry Faith) sends me a WhatsApp message ordering t-shirts and I have to respond ASAP. So chill out I’ll be back.

22:18hrs and am back after of course filling my glass with more Kibao as well so let’s get done with this. Get done with what? What are we even talking about? As we speak am now three quarter way drunk or is it quarter way sober? That still depends on who you’re talking to. I prefer the later. Sober sounds better no matter the degree. Am even thinking of stopping this post from here because who blogs drunk? But before I go, do you think my mum will ever forgive me? How about my sisters? My dad? My brothers? Fuck! My brothers can go to hell for all I care. What have I done to them? Nothing! Don’t ask me what I’ve done the others because I’ll get emotional. Especially my mum. Wait….. My sister in law. Oh Shit!
“haiya, Kwani Kesho ni tarehe tano?” sorry that wasn’t meant for you. Ignore that. I was talking to George my colleague as he passed my WiFi blogging spot on his way to the toilet. He’s having tusker cider so his constant washroom trips are understandable. Wait…. He’s having tusker cider in January is he illuminati?

Forget about George… Where was I? Oh yeah I was talking about my new khaki trouser I bought from Evelyn in December(bought? Naah! I haven’t paid till now 27th Jan so what do you call that? Buying or borrowing? But I’ll pay when we get paid ama?). But was I really talking about a trouser? Fuck! It’s 22:31 and I want to finish this post after exactly one hour. That’s at 22:38hours but am already short of Shit to last me 7 minutes. Juu ya hiyo story, let me go get another shot of Kibao by the time I come back it’ll be 22:38hours and that will be the end of my drunk post.

It’s 22:38 guys. Above is my drunk post. We’re done!

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After promising your boss you would complete an important assignment on time, you realize you’re behind and it’s going to be late. You unintentionally leave a colleague out of the loop on a joint project, causing him or her to feel frustrated and a bit betrayed. On the subway, you aren’t paying attention and accidentally spill hot coffee all over a stranger’s expensive suit. It’s time for a mea culpa.

Apologies are tricky. Done right, they can resolve conflict, repair hurt feelings, foster forgiveness, and improve relationships. An apology can even keep you out of the courtroom. Despite the fact that lawyers often caution their clients to avoid apologies, fearing that they are tantamount to an admission of guilt, studies show that when potential plaintiffs receive an apology, they are more likely to settle out of court for less money.

However, as anyone can tell you, most apologies don’t go so well. Ask John Galliano, for instance. Or John Edwards, or Todd Aiken, or Kanye West. (I could go on and on.) An apology is no guarantee that you’ll find yourself out of hot water.

This is usually either because the person or persons from whom you are seeking forgiveness really aren’t interested in forgiving, or because the transgression itself is deemed unforgivable. But more often than not, your apology falls flat because you’re apologizing the wrong way.

In a nutshell, the problem is that most people tend to make their apologies about themselves—about their intentions, thoughts, and feelings.

“I didn’t mean to…”

“I was trying to…”

“I didn’t realize…”

“I had a good reason…”

When you screw up, the victim of your screw up does not want to hear about you. Therefore, stop talking about you and put the focus of your apology where it belongs: on him or her. Specifically, concentrate on how the victim has been affected by your mistake, on how the person is feeling, and on what he or she needs from you in order to move forward.

Thanks to recent research on effective apologies, you can fine-tune your approach even further according to your relationship with the recipient of the apology:

You Are A Stranger or Mere Acquaintance
The guy in the coffee-stained suit wants an offer of compensation. Offers of compensation are attempts to restore balance through some redeeming action. Sometimes the compensation is tangible, like paying to repair or replace your neighbor’s fence when you inadvertently back your car into it, or running out to get your girlfriend a new phone when you accidentally drop hers into the toilet (which happened to me, by the way. Not cool.) Offers of compensation can also be more emotional or socially-supportive. (as in,”I’m sorry I acted like a jerk, and I’ll make it up to you by being extra thoughtful from now on.”)

You Are My Partner, Colleague, or Friend
The colleague you accidentally left out of the loop doesn’t want compensation. When you have a relationship with the injured party, you will instead need to take his or her perspective and express empathy. Expressions of empathy involve recognizing and expressing concern over the suffering you caused. (e.g., “I’m so sorry that I didn’t appreciate all of your effort. You must have felt awful, and that’s the last thing I want.”) Through expressions of empathy, the victim feels understood and valued as a partner in the relationship, and trust is restored.

You Let Our Team Down
In the modern workplace, we often operate as teams. So when you fail to meet an important deadline, chances are it’s not just your boss that’s affected—it’s your whole team, and possibly your whole organization. In team settings, people don’t want compensation or empathy—they want an acknowledgement of violated rules and norms. Basically, you need to admit that you broke the code of behavior of your social group, your organization, or your society. (e.g., “I have a responsibility to my team/organization/family/community and I should have known better. I didn’t just let myself down, I let others who count on me down.”)

When you think about it, it’s surprising that we’re often so bad at apologizing. After all, we are frequently on the receiving end of apologies ourselves—so we should know what works and what doesn’t. In reality, we often forget what it’s like to be on the other side—whether we’re trying to apologize, impress, persuade, help, or motivate.

So when crafting your apology, remember to ask yourself the following: Who am I talking to, and what is he or she looking for in my apology? The guy on the subway still dripping from your morning joe doesn’t want to hear that you “feel his pain”—but when you forget your wife’s birthday, she most definitely would like you to feel hers.

Reference: Harvard Business Review

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At around 4pm today I decided I was gonna write a new post on this blog of mine. Trust me I did. I wrote a whole post to the end only to think it wasn’t good enough to see the light of the day so I hit “Delete post” and that was it! So I went back to Facebook to keep checking whats new? what are people talking about and that kinda stuff. Of course there was a lot to catch up on. For instance the one man guitar (sorry, one man gun) in Kapenguria who shot dead four police officers at a police station with a gun he grabbed from one of them and held other inmates (he was an inmate himself) hostage. Apparently it took over 6 hours for him to be neutralized (Am told it means being shot dead lol!) by the recce squad (a special sniper squad in the army) and am like really!! did it really have to take a whole battalion of Recce squad to neutralize (there we go again!) one man who was using the same type of gun as the other policemen since he snatched it from one of them? What if he came with his packed lunch from home, sorry packed guns that were more powerful as we know they always are especially when its Al shabaab? And what just if it was two men and not one? would it take 12 hours for them to be shot dead (am tired of neutralizing) or something?

At that point you wonder the kind of training our forces go through. Maybe we should enlist the services of Al Shabaab defectors to help train our police officers in matters shooting and neutralization. Apparently our cops are only good at that extra judicial thing. Am told there have been over 25,000 cases of reported extra judicial killings since the year 2013 according to the commission on administrative justice in Kenya also known as the ombudsman (who gave them that shit name?) Isn’t that unpalatable! What if we had killed the same number of Al shabaabs in the same period? Rewind selector!…. back to what I was saying, so I go to Facebook and even I decide to be part of “what’s going on” by posting a photo I came across the internet of a woman wearing what I thought was a tailor made weave that it had a zip. Perfect fitting. Designer I guess. Let me just share it here so you get the hang of what am talking about. See photo below.

So then it was 5pm time to close office and go home since no one cares how long you work past 5pm here. There’s no overtime! Just then I stumble on a Sautisol post where Bien (their lead vocalist) was asking guys to check out his new blog post titled The evolution of the sausage economy which sounded catchy and interesting for a title so I headed straight there, read the post and went ahead to read many more from his archives. He’s a very articulate writer, full of wit and a very good command of English. It got me thinking….. why the f*** did I delete my post? Just then I realized in my drafts section of my blog there are many posts that I never published. As a matter of fact all posts you discard go the drafts section and I could re-post the one I deleted earlier still but instead I opted not to. I won’t. I know if the post was a stupid one the fact that I didn’t post it doesn’t change the fact that I write stupid posts since I read somewhere that When you make an ass of yourself on Facebook, then delete the post, are you still an ass even though the post is no longer there. Lol! ain’t that too mean!! I ain’t no ass! I just wanted to make a new post on my blog to keep it alive but unfortunately it just didn’t meet the threshold. Am not sure this does either but I ain’t hitting no “delete post” button here. I accept to be an ass this time.

Wait…. let refresh my Facebook timeline… Whoah! it now emerges that the number of police officers killed at Kape (Kapenguria in short) is actually seven according to latest media reports. Forget it! Am more concerned with the reason why I keep deleting or discarding my posts. Do they sound nonsense? No way I don’t write nonsense! Because nonsense is say a nurse waking up a patient so they can swallow their sleeping pills. That’s nonsense!!! I don’t do that kinda shit! Now what do I write next? I’ve run out of ideas to finish up this post completely! Let me take a ten minute break will be back here fresh. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

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………………….. Still nothing to think of!! My clock says its 6.50pm I got to get my ass out of here. At least I finally managed to make a new post. But I promise to be back here in a very short period with another post. Probably a better one say in a week’s time.

GOOD NIGHT!

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Date: 30/3/1955 is the date my mum Jane Olala was born in a village called Namirama somewhere in Kakamega. This is the date that appears on her government documents though. She says her parents have no idea what date she was born so dates had to be cooked up. I know nothing about her childhood so I’ll go straight to her primary school days when she met one Javan Olala the would be our dad while he taught at Namirama primary school in the 60’s. Javan must have been the team mafisi chairman then since I don’t see how a teacher is supposed to fall in love with his student, a primary school one, and end up marrying her. Anyway they did. Fast forward to when I was a kid since I have no idea what transpired between when they met and when I was born.

By the time I was of sound mind and able to know whats up at around age 4, she was a student at Siriba Teachers Training College which is now Maseno University Siriba Campus and we were all alone at home with Javan who did everything for us from cooking to bathing us. That must have hurt. If my wife was to go away for even a single day she better bathes those brats five times in one day for the shine to last the entire period she’ll be away. I have no problem with cooking but she should be sure to wash the utensils we used from the day she left till the day she comes back. In short the shorter she stays away the better otherwise go with the kids. I’ll eat in a hotel and come sleep. Jane would soon complete her teacher training at Maseno and come back to us. TSC of those days wasn’t an asshole like today’s folks would get employed the next day after completing training. Or maybe its the government not TSC. But TSC is a government organ after all so no difference. She’d be posted to Buhayi primary school but shortly moved to Lusumu primary school. It was a distance from home so she went to work on a black mamba bicycle.

When I was the age of joining nursery school she was moved to Sihanikha primary school. Sihanikha is the cradle of mankind (mankind = me) as it’s where it all started. No cars, no shoes for us and no bike for mum because Sihanikha wasn’t far from home and that means we’d brave the early morning dew on our way to school and there was no way I’d skip school because she made sure the three of us (with my two elder brothers) walked ahead of her and not behind (correction: we didn’t walk. We ran. She walked too fast we couldn’t match up so we always were in Usain mode.) Mwalimu Jane as she was fondly referred to was the no-nonsense type she’d beat the hell out of you if you messed in her class (and in her house as well.) She was a strict disciplinarian no one fancied finding themselves on the wrong when she’s on duty. She wasnt the type who’d slap another student because he beat me up and I ran to report to her. I’d get the beating instead for getting myself into a fight. Am not supposed to.

When my desk-mate, Omutingo, landed a right (ngumi) on my eye I remember running to the staff room to report him to my mum. Instead of calling my assailant and slapping the hell out of his tiny head I was the one to be given a sound beating and ordered back to class as quiet as I didn’t come. It had to happen because the louder I cried the worse it became. I still haven’t forgiven my attacker to date. I promised to “close school with him” (Getting my revenge on closing day by hitting him hard enough then bolting home) but I never did because I couldn’t run faster than he could and that would mean more trouble for me. I’d learn in the same school where she taught till class seven when I transferred to Sivilie primary school but for one reason or the other I came back to the cradle of mankind for class eight. The fact that my mum was always in school kinda made me a better student and I came third in the primary school final exams. She would then move to Nambacha primary school in 1996 when I joined form one at Ingotse high school. She retired on june 3oth 2015.

I was alone in high school so shit happened. I don’t even remember being close to position twenty save for one term in form three when I got hold of all exam papers in the library before hand so I only revised the exam but I only managed to be position 24 out of 80 but that again was because I didn’t want to over-perform and surprise my teachers who’d then form a tribunal to investigate my results since everyone including me knew I wasn’t the type to top the class. While in high school, one of my elder brothers was at university and the other one in high school as well and that meant trouble for my primary teacher parents. We refused to go to low cost day schools so were all sent to good boarding schools. One day I stole my mum’s payslip only to see four loans from KATECO (Kakamega Teachers’ Sacco) and a net pay of close to Ksh. 577. All that was so she could see us through school. I didn’t pity her at that time because I always thought my parents had money. After all “they’re teachers” I’d tell myself. None of us was ever sent home for lack of school fees.

When she visited on visiting days she’d leave me with Ksh. 20 for pocket money to last me till the next visiting day a month later. It lasted me 10 mins after she had left. I loved food so I spent 10 shillings to buy half bread and 10 shillings on supa dip (Some flavoured powder we’d dissolve in water and make juice) from the school canteen and gobble everything up as fast as possible before my friends could find me and ask for a share. After high school with some of my brothers and sisters (We were born seven in total) still in boarding high schools my mum still took me to college. And again I was never sent away for lack of school fees. At that time I was mature enough to have pity so I avoided her payslips like Shebesh would avoid Kidero lest I get emotional. When I finished college and was jobless she would still give me fare to go see Velma whom I had met as broken down in one of my earlier posts on this blog.

In my first job in Kisumu where I was paid peanuts I’d go broke as soon as I got paid and I’d call her to send me some money to use which she did without ever complaining. And even as an adult the other day I went home for december holidays with my car and I ended up celebrating Christmas using every penny I had in my account when it was time to come back to Nairobi I was a broke ass nigga I couldn’t afford a litre of petrol to get my ass out of Kakamega to Nairobi. Jane gave me 4,000 shillings to “buy fuel, go back to Nairobi but send me that cash as soon as you get to Nairobi because it’s church money” she said.

In my book on INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY there’s only one woman who can play the main character. Happy International Women’s day mama Jane Lusike Olala. You’re the strongest I’ve ever seen. You’re the best I’ve ever had. There will be no other like you.

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On a chilly countryside morning in February 2005 in the village I was seated besides the three stones used for cooking in my mum’s kitchen roasting maize for breakfast when I heard the sound of a bicycle bell outside. It was a bodaboda (bicycle taxi) who had dropped Joseph Walala a former college mate who had come to talk to me about some job offer in his “company” he had formed after graduating from college. Walala was the ring leader of a students strike we staged in college against our then principal Kikete Mungau but I can’t remember what grievances we had then. I was in first year and so excited to be striking and marching to town shouting “Kikete must go!”and then back to the principal’s office to flush him out. In short Walala was a hard guy! So hard I thought the police didn’t scare him. When the cops were called in to contain the situation Walala stood his ground and mobilized us to answer to his “Comrades!!!!” and we did “power!!” in unison you’d think it was one very loud person. Then he started singing “Solidarity forever….” like Sossion the KNUT sec gen but before he could finish the police had had enough of us and decided since we were not agreeing to restore order as they requested us we’d now be flushed out of the college premises and the institution closed indefinitely. So they asked us to park our stuff and leave the compound but we resisted and added another “power” to another Walala’s “Comrades!!!.” The police who had come in very many land rovers but had parked them at the nearby market called Shikondi and would only call for the whole battalion would there be any resistance from the students decided it was time for that reinforcement. The speed at which the land rovers came down would get you a prison sentence if you were caught by the very same police driving your Mazda demio or any other car at the same speed. Long story short, they gave us five minutes to vacate the compound but I remember I used only two. Walala the hard guy must have used one because I found him already boarding the matatu (public transport vehicle) to town.

So Walala is here to offer me a job as a technical consultant in his “company” called JOWA INTERNATIONAL SERVICES and as expected I take the offer because I left college a year ago and its now time to start working! Together with a group of other guys who worked under me we completed our first assignment at Shamusinjiri seconday school and it was now time to move to Bukhalalire seconday school in Busia county and the excitement was immeasurable! “Am excelling!” I thought quietly and smiled. When we reached Busia Walala became a dickhead and a control freak he handled us like nursery school kids in a boarding school who should take in every instruction from their teacher starting from what time to sleep, what time to eat, when to go for a shower, what time to go for break and all that. We didn’t have a life of our own he even forced us to go to church one Sunday but we openly revolted and I was on the front line of that revolution. We showed open defiance and told him we were not his kids! We were his staff! Walala decided to “sack” me and send me back home of which he did but after paying me quarter of what he owed me. I insulted him before all his workers who feared and worshiped him and told him he hadn’t seen the last of me. I didn’t go home. The day before that I had met a girl on our way from the school after work to our residence. She was dancing to reggae music as they rehearsed for their next show with their theatre group at Bukhalalire market. I stopped and waited for them to finish the rehearsals and made sure I talked to her that evening. She was beautiful and I got attracted at first sight. They went round the villages and markets sensitizing people about HIV AIDS and malaria in fact when we met our first conversation went like; “Hi, am Martin” and she was like “Hi, am Velma na nimechill” and in my heart I was like “You’re my wife!!!.” Nimechill was a swahili word coined by the AIDS campaigners to mean “I don’t do sex until after wedding.” She was right. She was a virgin. Trust me I know what am saying. So now Walala has sacked me and I need to go back home to Kakamega and leave my chilled Velma behind barely before getting to know her better. I had fallen in love with her instantly. I went to the next market called Bar Ober (pronounced in Luo not English. It’s not a name of a bar its the market) and entered the first bar (real bar now) I saw.

I was devastated that I was leaving my princess charming behind only a day after meeting her! I drunk till 4pm then went back to Bukhalalire market where I’d meet her after the rehearsals of the day but I arrived late and they had already left for home. Since I had walked her home the previous day I knew the direction so I went straight there and found her riding a bicycle in her dad’s compound. She saw me at the gate and signaled for me to wait outside the fence as she picked the bike and picked a plastic container as if going to get water from the river. There are no taps in the village hope you know that. We’d throw the container in the bush and go on a stroll. She was very sad when I broke the news of my sacking and that I’d be leaving the next day. She persuaded me to stay but I hadn’t sacked myself! Walala had sacked me and he sucks! We talked a lot that evening. I confessed my love for her and she did the same. She had fallen in love the first day we met. I took her back to her home and promised to see her the next day before I went back to Kakamega. Because I was so mad at Walala I decided to go book a room in the hotel he stayed at Bar Ober and I asked the hotel attendant to give me the room next to his. Of course they didn’t we had beef so they obliged. I wanted to give Walala a scare in the morning because there was very bad blood between me and him at the moment I told him I’d run him over if I had the chance. When morning came, I waited for him to get out of his room to wash his face before I could do the same. When he did, I did. He started trembling and I could see the fear all over his face. He didn’t even brush his teeth he rushed back to the house and in no time he was out and dashed past the gate. He had gone to the assistant chief of the area to report a threat on his life. The assistant chief happened to be the coordinator of the theater group Velma belonged to. I left my hotel room and went back to Velma’s home to say my last goodbye before I left. When I arrived she was ready to leave for her morning computer lessons at the market so we came strolling. Walala was in the vicinity of the market so he rushed to get the assistant chief from his office to arrest me. The two of them came and I was summoned to the chief’s office. I was told Walala had reported a threat on his life and that it didn’t seem right that I was still in the area when we had fallen out with him and if anything happened to him I’d be held responsible. I made it clear to the chief that I wasn’t in the area because of Walala but for my girlfriend.

The chief told me “We’re happy that you have found a girl among our people my son and you are more than welcome to be our in-law but as long as this man is working here and has filed a report with the administration it’s more likely that you might get yourself in trouble. Kindly leave and come back any other day to visit your girlfriend but when these people no longer work here.” I agreed to it with a heavy heart and hurled one more insult to Walala while still at the chief’s office and left. I went back to the computer room where I had left Velma and bid her an emotional good-bye before I finally left Bukhalalire. I promised to go back. Walala was not done with me yet. He went to the theater group later in the evening and caused a turmoil lecturing the group members how they preach water and drink wine. He pin pointed Velma and wondered how she was preaching about per-marital sex while she moved around and dated a married man who had neglected his family and his wife walked around the village without a panty because the husband could not afford one for her. I am the man Walala was trying to discredit. He said all the meanest things he could think of just to get Velma to forget about me and he’d have had his revenge. I was only 23 years old then but Walala made everyone believe I had a family that I had neglected. Velma wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. I had “lied” to her. I had caused her embarrassment before her friends and peers. The assistant chief cum coordinator of the group wanted to expel her from the group. The rest of the members pleaded with him to give her a last chance. He did but with conditions. She should never, ever! see me. And she promised she will never, ever! see me. Velma had a phone then. I didn’t have one so a week later when I went to the market to make a call to her from a public phone popularly known as simu ya jamii she picked but the moment I said “Hello, its Marto” she cut me short and yelled “Don’t ever call this number again. I can’t believe you lied to me! You are married, you have neglected your family, you have caused embarrassment, you have broken my heart, I don’t ever wanna see you again!!” Before I could ask for her to explain all that because it all sounded strange to me she disconnected the call. I was crashed. I paid eight shillings to the phone owner and walked away. I was bleeding inside. I was confused. I explained everything to my mum to whom I had so happily revealed how I had met my princess charming in Busia. My chilled future wife.

My mum felt so sorry and asked me if I wanted to go see Velma in person instead so she could explain to me everything. I said yes and she gave 500 shillings for my bus fare the next day. I didn’t sleep that night. By 8am I was on my way to Busia. Walala still worked there but nothing mattered to me at that point. Walala and his assistant chief could go and rot in hell if they wished to. I reached Bukhalalire market and went to where Velma’s theater group practised but because I didn’t want to cause her any further trouble I stood meters away where he could not see me. But Velma did. She spotted me from very far and arranged to escape from the rest of the group to come see me. Not so tell me she loved me but to send me away. To tell me I should never ever look for her again. She did. She explained how Walala had told the whole group about me and how embarrassed she was and that I should go back to my family and forget about her. I tried my best to explain the truth and that all Walala said were lies but she could have none of that. That’s one day I have never forgotten in my life. My world came crumbling down. My dreams came crushing before my very own eyes. I left her with one sentence. “One day you’ll realize I was telling the truth and that my love for you was genuine and not a lie. I’ll be back.” I left and boarded the matatu back home. When I reached Mumias town I was almost run over by a bus. I was absent-minded as I crossed the road and couldn’t hear the hooting bus. It stopped centimeters away from me with all the emergency brakes applied and dust covered the whole scene. I still walked off the road in the same pace like nothing had happened. In Mumias town I went to another simu ya jamii to make the last call to Velma. I told her I had reached Mumias town but all she replied was “OK” and disconnected the call. I knew we were done. It was my turn to wish the ground opened up and swallowed me whole.

From that time in February I never heard from Velma till June when I got a job as a shopkeeper in a school canteen at Kegoye seconday school in Mbale Vihiga county. I had access to a simu ya jamii that was in the canteen and I though this was another chance to try get in touch with her. I called her number one day and she picked then I introduced myself and asked where she was and if she still did theatre and stuff like that. She still sounded cold on me. She still hadn’t forgiven me for lying to her. The more I insisted on calling her daily the more I realized “This will just never work!” I gave up and decided it was time to move on. I wasn’t in a hurry to find another woman though. I moved on by accepting I had lost her not by falling in love with someone else. In August the same I got my first job at Jalaram Academy Kisumu after having seen the vacancy in the Daily Nation and took my application by hand delivery to the school then went back home to Kakamega. I had written my brother’s phone number in my CV because I was living with him while in Vihiga. When I went back home he received a call from Jalaram asking him if they could talk to me and told them I was very far from him but he could deliver the message if any. They asked him to tell me to go for an interview the next day. He called my mum’s phone and delivered the message. I got the job. That was in August. I never tried to get in touch with Velma again until December. I had bought my own mobile phone then so I called just to say hi to my one time love but what went I heard changed my life forever! “Hey, sasa! mbona umenyamaza siku mingi hivi? nimekumiss!” I didn’t believe she had just said that! I was like “You sure!? you miss me!?” and she repeated the same thing, “nimekumiss sana!” During the time I used to call her daily in June I had been explaining so hard how for sure I wasn’t married and she had been cold but at least she started thinking I sounded genuine and she had been waiting for my next call since I didn’t have a regular number she’d get me on so she hoped against hope that one day I’d call and she’d use that chance to let me know she wanted me back.

She’s the lady in red.

They say If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were. And at that time I believed in that saying. Some idiot tried saying If you love someone, set them free. If they come back it means no one liked them so set them free again. Lol! I wasn’t gonna do that. That’s crap! We kept in constant touch after that but never saw each other until April 2006, a year and 2 months since we last met when I made another journey to Busia town this time where she lived with her elder sister. That day still lingers on my mind like it was yesterday. When we hugged, we didn’t wanna let go of each other. It had been a grueling odyssey. No one had ever warned it would be this tough. We were back together. She visited me in Kisumu in August the same year and yes…… She was had been chilling all that time we were apart. She was a virgin. I haven’t said anything don’t look at me like that! 2007 came and we were getting stronger by each passing day. In October I went and asked for her hand in marriage from her father who quickly agreed because according to him, I looked like a good man. I am a good man y’all can keep your opinions to yourself. On 21st December 2007 we got married. It was on a Friday and stop wondering how we got married on a Friday. We didn’t wed. Come we stay and here we are. I would never ask for a better mother to my kids. Velma has been the best mum to our daughters, she’s been the best wife. She’s stood with me through all my flaws and shortcomings. Trust me no one else can put up with me and you can take that to Kenya Women Finance Trust as security for a loan and it’ll be approved. We started from the bottom now we here. At the time we got married my gross salary was Ksh. 8,000. The net would come to something close to 5k a month and she didn’t have a job. I had to pay rent of our one bed-roomed house at Ksh. 2,200 a month in Nyalenda some area called Katworo and my landlord was some alcoholic called Nyamweno. When I couldn’t afford that we moved to a smaller house costing Ksh. 1,500 a month and didn’t have power connection and Oyombe was my landlord. These were decent brick houses back in the day the cost of living was low. I remember Jakoyo, my colleague in Kisumu lived in a two bed-roomed house in its own compound for only Ksh. 4,500 a month. I left Kisumu a year later for Nairobi in November 2008 mad God has been faithful.

“I ain’t lying. Yeah. I’ve always been a bit of a hopeless romantic myself. If our true match exists somewhere, it’s our goal in life to find her. But, see, Andrew’s a bit more rational than me. Andrew always believed that “the one” was a farce created by musicians and Hollywood. Until last December. Andrew calls my cell phone and he says, “Remember all that stuff I said about there being no such thing as ‘the one’?” He said, “Well, I was wrong. Her name is Gina Baker. And she doesn’t know this yet, but she’s going to be my wife.” Awww. And I knew at that moment that this Gina Baker was the luckiest girl in the world.” ~Kevin Hart (The wedding ringer 2015)

Velma is “The One” that almost got away.

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That day at the Coptic Hospital along Ngong road as I lay on the hospital bed starring at the ceiling and thinking, “Am I not supposed to be dead or at least be in great pain?” I was saying that because I had just woken up and sobered up for that matter after being being rushed there at 3am by my neighbour, Wafula, and my wife after that grisly road accident on Waiyaki way the fateful night of March 14th 2015. I had seen on news before, read in the papers/internet, heard stories of how people either lost limbs, arms and for the unlucky ones they lost lives in road accidents. I had been once at the Kenyatta National Hospital’s casualty section entrance and seen firsthand how people were rushed in on stretchers from ambulances when the vehicle they were traveling in rolled on Mombasa road. I couldn’t stand the pain and agony the survivors were going through so I left and went back to the children’s wing where I had left Velma and my daughter Elsie whom we had taken to the doctor that night when she suddenly fell so ill. At the time when my car had a tire burst and I lost control of it and started rolling, I remembered I didn’t even have my seat belt fastened and here am doing somersaults with the car on a highway! The only thing that came to my mind is “by the time this car is done with these gymnastics, I’ll be dead.” NB: I was super drunk when it happened. We all tend to think life is a script and everything somehow goes as scripted but then we’re bewildered at just how things turn out the way we didn’t think they would. And that’s life. In short, contrary to my expectations, I escaped with no injuries at all save for a few scratches on my arm that were almost unnoticeable. The doctors gave me a clean bill of health and allowed me to go home after a few anti tetanus and pain killing jabs. That was after sleeping and snoring my drunkenness away. It never, actually, happens the way we think it will happen. The day before my accident, Father Anthony of Vincentian Prayer house on Amboseli Road Lavington had met my wife on a queue at their bookshop when she went to buy some christian literature and singled her out of the many people queuing. He called her and asked “Hi, are you married?” She said yes and he went on; “I can see your husband in an accident but he’ll be fine. Whats his name?” She gave him my name and he prayed with her over what he had just said. After that he wrote a note and gave it to her. The note read;

Dear Martin,

kindly come see me.

Father Anthony.

That was on Friday 13th. Being a Friday and #TGIF for that matter, I was not coming home any earlier than 4am the next day and super dunk for that matter. I reached home at 6am looking like I had just come from swimming in Kendrick Lamar’s swimming pool full of liquor. I was super wasted! I think I made the top two list of the most drunk people on our apartments where I live. There’s that girl like three doors from my house I’ve never seen no one as drunk as she gets. I am sure she was my only competition even though I didn’t see her that day meaning I could as well be the title holder of the day. My wife was so pissed she didn’t even give me the note from Father Anthony although I still don’t know if I’d get the time to go see him that day. It was a Saturday for God’s sake! The day for happening!!! Velma left me sleeping as she went to work. I was up by 10am and took the photo below. It almost became the last photo I’d ever take in my life. The rest is history, I went on to drink all day and night, hoped from bar to bar and when it was time to go back home at around 3am, I got into my car and started “flying.” I drove so fast at some point I remember overtaking a brand new Toyota Prado VX you’d think it wasn’t moving. Then came the loud bang of the tyre and the next thing I remember is opening the door to get out of the car. I was in one piece but I thought about my friend Matayo whom I had dropped earlier in the night when he thought he had had enough and asked me to take him home. I said to myself; “Kangekuwa hapa kangekufa!” to mean had he been with me at the time of the accident he’d be dead but again it never happens the way we think it’ll happen. My wife gave me the note from Father Anthony a day after the accident. I have tried ever since to meet this man of God without success. He’s one hell, sorry heaven of a busy man! But let it be known that I haven’t gone back to alcohol since the 14th of March. I haven’t and I’ll never! That accident was a turning point. It was God sent. I needed it! Alcohol had messed up my life. I was a wreck! I now know better. They say Don’t drink and drive, I say DON’T DRINK AT ALL!

In other news, my uncle Wasike Kumiri and sons is another classic example of it never happens the way we think it’ll happen. I always find myself laughing so hard whenever I retell this story. My uncle decided he had had enough of this night runner who keeps doing laps around his grass thatched house every night and so he decided to teach him a lesson he’d never forget for the rest of his sorry life. One day he decides to lay a trap for him with the help of his sons Namenge(a name traditionally given to women I still don’t know why uncle named his son the same), Johny, Matakho (No jokes! its his name!), Peter and Musa. My uncle “knows” how the whole thing will unfold. He knows the direction the night runner will come from and therefore places his sons strategically at several “check points” along the route the night runner will allegedly take the moment he’s accosted by uncle and decides to run away. Uncle then goes and hides under that structure used to dry utensils in the sun after washing as he waits for the man from the ministry of sports and culture(Our Luo brothers from Ndhiwa taught us. See picture on the left) to start going about his business of night running. Where I come from we dry utensils out in the sun under that thing called esitalataliro. I have no idea whats its called in English.) As expected, the night runner shows up at the very hour he does daily. He goes straight to hide under the esitalataliro.to be sure no one was awake and walking around the compound before he deemed it safe to go ahead with his routine. He obviously didn’t know my uncle would be there too and he didn’t expect anyone there for that matter so he sat comfortably as he watched the compound. My uncle was scared to the bone! He didn’t believe the night runner had guts enough to sit next to him. He started sweating profusely and was so full of fear. He had told the sons that the moment they hear him scream they should get ready to give a sound beating to the night runner who’d be running towards their direction. When he couldn’t handle the heat under esitalataliro. any longer he decided to run for his life screaming and heading towards where his sons were. The night runner obviously took a different direction knowing he had been busted but Matakho(whose christian name is David) and the rest of my cousins were prepared of only one thing: Beat the hell out of the guy who comes running once father screams. Before they discovered it was their own dad he had been pounded properly.

Shit happens. But it never happens the way we think it’ll happen.

28th March. Exactly two weeks after the accident.

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Well, I wanted to think of a title for my very first post on the all new blog but just couldn’t come with something catchy. I, however, think “first things first” still works well. Being my first post, I’ll talk about “first” the word and how it impacts almost everything we do in life. When you are the first-born in the family its a damn good thing and it comes with a whole lot of responsibility. For instance do you know what they say about first-born children? all amazing stuff like you can only have one first born child, you may love all your children deeply and with passion, but there’s something unique about the first-born. I am a third born myself so I guess there isn’t much in me that my parents see as compared to our eldest brother Francis whom some call Bradley because that was the name he was given by mum at birth.

The Roman Catholic priest at St. Kizito Lusumu catholic church one Fr. Kelly Mirimo, however, declined to baptize him as Bradley since it wasn’t a catholic name and instead he was called Francis from then on and Bradley dropped. There’s still folks who call him Bradley loosely translated as “Platiri” as he’s referred to by his peers in the village who think Bradley is too hard to pronounce but again you’ll forgive them since we are luhyas. The one guy among my brother’s friends who always called him Platiri is the late Abedi (His soul rest in peace) the son to Chalusa, a nickname that means putting an end to someone’s behaviour in a not so pleasant way.

To explain this better I might have to use the example of our once luo shamba boyback in the day one David Onyango from Kendu Bay who used sneak into one of our neighbour’s compound in the night and knock on the small hut and “steal” one of his daughters to come make love to her all night before he took her back before day break. Remember David didn’t have a house of his own where he did all this in privacy. We and I mean all my brothers Peter, Antony and myself plus Onyango shared a bedroom in the only “simba” our dad had built for the boys. Platiri our elder bro lived with our uncle far away in Webuye where he went to school.

What this simply means is that we had to endure all night as David and his girlfriend Namisi made love and screamed. I was in class six then so y’all know how curious I’d get right? Let me just say I never closed my eyes every night Namisi was in attendance Lol!!! Wait, am still explaining the meaning of Chalusa. So one day our neighbour, Waswa, got wind of David’s conniving ways with Namisi and decided to lay an ambush for him as he tiptoed his way towards the girls hut. Before he could knock the door, Waswa landed a very heavy rungu(club) on Onyango’s back he jumped and ran off like a hungry tiger he even passed our simba like he didn’t even live there only to come back after two hours.

David never went back for the girl ever again! At least we got to sleep at night from that day henceforth. Lets just say Waswa chalusad Onyango from stealing his daughter at night. Back to first things first and I was talking about how awesome it is a being first-born. They say a woman has two smiles that an angel might envy, the smile that accepts a lover before words are uttered and a smile that lights on the first-born baby, and assures it of a mother’s love. When my wife gave birth to our first-born daughter, Candice, I wasn’t there to witness the same but I know she did smile just the same way she did when I first confessed my love for her the second day we met. This happened along some bushy footpath in a village called Siguli in Murumba sub-location Busia county.

Now y’all know Mama Candice and I met in the village and not in Monte-Carlo night club on Accra road in Nairobi or Tacos along Kimathi street which am told it’s mainly frequented by homosexuals. Wait, Tacos closed shop and its now called i-club so the homos shifted base to Club Envy on Tom Mboya street. I am not here to talk about homos since I don’t even give a hoot what someone decides to do with their life. Your sexuality your choice but about how I met my wife? that will be a post for another day I promise. An entire post on the same. So she gave birth to Candice while I was away. I wasn’t away because I was an irresponsible father as most of you already have concluded, I was away because I had just started on my new job in Nairobi like two days before after moving from Kisumu where I left her very pregnant.

The day I left Kisumu for Nairobi is the only day Velma, my wife, ever saw my tears. I couldn’t hold them back knowing I was leaving behind a very pregnant woman all on her own in the house, we didn’t have a house girl or anyone apart from us. The thought of leaving her behind to take care of herself when labour strikes and to think she was only 23 at the time made me cry like a baby. We held each other in the arms with my bags packed and out of the doorstep and cried like babies for over two hours. But I had to leave. I had got a better job in the city and prayed to God to take care of Narano, as my dad calls her. When I stepped out leaving her sobbing uncontrollably on the couch I met with “Daddy”, a neighbour and a very good friend of mine who once beat up his drunk brother senseless for calling out another friend of mine, Kimani Kariuki, whom I accommodated in my house when the post-election violence was at its worst and Kikuyus bore the brunt of vengeful Luo youth who claimed Baba’s victory had been stolen in the 2007 presidential elections.

Daddy’s brother whose name I have even forgotten because he wasn’t such a pleasant human being shouted “Gipand okuyu ka!! Wabiro wang’ odni!” That’s luo for “They’re hiding a Kikuyu here! we’ll burn this house!” Kimani didn’t sleep a single minute that night. He left with all his belongings the next day as we went to work but Daddy’s brother received a sound beating from both Daddy and his father he was locked in the pigs’ house after that. Baba is the former prime minister of Kenya, Rt. Hon Raila Amolo Odinga. Wait, let me finish about Daddy. So I met him and he could see the tears in my eyes and he wanted to know why I was crying. I explained the situation to him and he was like “Marto, as long as am here, don’t worry about anything. Your wife will be fine. Am going to your house now to let her know that she can count on me for anything.”

I am still more than grateful to Daddy for everything he did for me when my wife knocked his door at 1 o’clock in the night when labour pains started. He took her to Milimani hospital and told the nurses he was the husband and stayed there till 5pm the next day when my wife delivered. He kept me posted of every progress and I’ll never thank him enough. Lol! do you know how words keep flowing the moment you start to write an interesting story? Am having to force myself to stop here since this is a web post and not a book I don’t want to get anyone bored. But I wish one day I’ll get to write a book about all these things so i can go on and on and on because after all its a book! Am very thankful to have completed my first ever original post. I’ve always wanted to do this! I’ve had blogs but I used to do copy and paste from other sites and it didn’t give me satisfaction. Am more than glad to be me and write my own original stories here and share with the whole world.